Library Evaluation

A two-fold project, this consisted of choosing a library and analyzing one of its digital collections as well as its social media presence. I chose to look at the New York Public Library, an immensely large institution ¹⁾ which has become a model for how libraries can – and should – approach existing in the 21st century.

The New York Public Library's (NYPL) digital collection is housed under the umbrella name of Digital Collections. I reviewed the collection itself, in terms of accessibility, how items were listed, how items were presented, and the overall scheme of the collection.

You can view the full report here on Dropbox.

The second component of the NYPL that I analyzed was its social media presence. The NYPL has an impressive handle of social media, maintaining accounts on all the major networking sites including Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube. For five weeks, I followed their media feeds and analyzed the kinds of content they published, how they interacted with their followers, and what their user community was like.